


our love was made for movie screens (if you loved me why did you leave me)

by fragilou



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Insecurity, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 13:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2694905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragilou/pseuds/fragilou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>looking for alaska!au  | nick is the new kid, harry his roommate and louis is the beautiful boy with the sharp tongue, big heart and sad smile nick can't help but falling in love with. it's complicated. |</p>
            </blockquote>





	our love was made for movie screens (if you loved me why did you leave me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mayleah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mayleah/gifts).



> hello :)  
> first of all thanks to everyone reading this and to the ppl who made the taggedtomlinshawficathon, it's been such a great experience and I really loved writing this even though it took me forever :)  
> Also thanks to my incredible beta http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mayleah/pseuds/Mayleah  
> thx for everything you've done for me, i love you so much.  
> Obviously none of the characters but the ones I made up are mine and this is fiction.  
> Also I apologize if I've gotten anything wrong about the whole radio/media business or about the british school system, I'm from germany and all my knowledge about media and stuff I've got from the internet which is not the safest source as you may know.  
> Okay so this work is based on a drawing I made in like five minutes or sth and it's a really bad drawing so pls don't even look at it (http://fragilou.tumblr.com/post/96647889496/okay-so-i-cant-draw-for-shit-but-i-had-this)  
> Thanks again to everyone helping and reading and whatever:)  
> pls leave a comment or kudos if you liked it  
> xx fragilou  
> P.S.pls listento this mix while reading: http://8tracks.com/_fragilou_/our-love-was-made-for-movie-screens-if-you-loved-me-why-did-you-leave-me

Nick has to keep on telling himself that he _actually_ wanted this. That he kept on begging his parents to let him go to this freakish media boarding school thing. Maybe he just couldn’t handle old boring home anymore. Sure, he had a spot at his schools radio thing but everyone there was kind of boring and Nick always felt so damn out of place, so different from everyone else, and that was really a thing that annoyed him to death.

Of course he liked being special and out-standing but that was kind of shit when everyone else wouldn’t understand your genius and just throw you these weird glances. Also, with this school he had a better chance to actually get a job at a big radio station one day.

So, while listing the reasons in his head, he keeps on standing outside the big castle-like building. Everywhere around him are people saying goodbye, parents telling their children to _behave_ and _work hard_ and _stay out of trouble_. Nick is _so_ glad his parents put him on the train and let him get here by himself, otherwise they would’ve just tried to talk him out of it again, even though he made it pretty clear that the last thing he wanted to do was to stay.

He sighs and takes his suitcase to drag it up the stairs to the entrance. He walks through a big entrance hall and climbs up some stairs. Everywhere are signs pointing in different directions saying _choir room, studios,_ many different classrooms and stuff like that. He has to think of his parents’ biggest argument for him not coming here: _Grimmy, you can study media in college, why do you already have to start doing it now?_  But he’s just hoping he’s got a better chance with a more advanced education.

When he finally gets to the rooms he is out of breath and his arms hurt from dragging the suitcase. He looks at the paper he got sent a few weeks ago which tells him to look for room 287 which he apparently shares with a Harry Styles. He walks down a long floor, passes doors with the numbers 281, 282, 283… and so on. When he gets to room 285 it’s the door to the room on his right but on his left there’s another door, made of glass and he can see that it leads to a small metallic balcony with stairs which lead to the backside garden of the school. He can also see the running chart from here. It’s probably just a fire escape but there is a figure out on the balcony.

Since it’s already dawn and the pane of the door is kind of dirty he can’t make out more than that it’s a probably male figure and that he/she/it is smoking a cigarette. He stares at the person for a few seconds then he shakes his head and passes on.

When he gets to the right door he takes a deep final breath and opens it. The room is…bright or at least one side of it. There are two beds with grey sheets, two cupboards and that’s about it. But the side which obviously belongs to his roommate is everything but boring. The walls above the bed are full of millions of photos of friends and family and the occasional puppy staring down at Nick. There isn’t any blank space; he wouldn’t even know which color the walls are if there wasn’t his own photo-free side.

On the bed lies, surrounded by millions of CDs by bands Nick actually likes which gives him some hope, a boy with a long, lanky body and a big mop of chocolate brown curls with a large pair of headphones pulled over them. The boy, _Harry_ , is wearing really tight trousers which only bring out his long giraffe-like legs even more and from what Nick can see a band t-shirt. His eyes are fixed on his computer screen, totally engrossed in whatever he’s listening to.

Nick closes the door and sits down on the bed, Harry still totally unaware of his presence. Only when he starts unpacking his things rather loudly the curly boy suddenly flinches and quickly pulls his headphones off.

“Shit, sorry mate I was totally- Oh, you’re Nick right? My new roommate! I’m Harry Styles!”, he says with a very deep and slow voice, it’s kind of calming. Nick grins and shakes his hand.

“Yeah that’s me! You’re a fan of the Vamps?” he asks with a look to one of the CDs. Harrys mouth turns into a ridiculously wide smile showing of perfectly white teeth.  
“Totally, they’re the best!” he says and points to a poster of them which has a postcard from Italy and several photos pinned to it. “That’s from a concert in London I went to with Finchy, Cal and Pixie oh I’ve gotta introduce them to you, you’re gonna love them.”

And so it goes on for about an hour while Nick unpacks his things and kind of tries to make the other side of the room look like someone lives there. He realizes that his worries had been totally stupid; he’s only been here an hour and he has already found someone who’s ten times more interesting than all of his “friends” from home combined. Harry has a similar taste in music as he does, but he’s actually doing mostly choir and other singing stuff here and only a little bit of radio and DJ’ing. Apparently he’s also friends with about everyone at the school but he’s got four best mates and he insists on Nick meeting them as soon as possible.

He also tells Nick about the cool teachers and the ones you should avoid and about a lot of other school related stuff. When Nick carefully mentions that he might be gay Harry just laughs it off and calls himself a convinced bisexual and after that he opens the window and shouts “love is fucking equal” into the air and a few seconds later someone shouts back “agreed”.  
“See”, Harry says. “Nobody cares who you love here.”

+

“Grimmy these three lovely fellas are Zayn, Liam and Niall, three out of four of my best friends. Say hello guys!” Harry beams. They are in the cafeteria carrying tablets with some disgusting looking sandwiches and soda on them. After they got their food Harry grabbed his arm and pulled him straight over to one of the round tables (the only one by the big glass wall which gave them an amazing view on the south side of the school ground. There’s a big forest with mostly pine trees and a bit hidden behind some trees and a little hill Nick thinks he has spotted a lake.)

The boys at the table send him smiles. Liam is a very handsome muscly guy with brown hair and puppy brown eyes; he’s got a nice, very sweet looking face.

Zayn is… beautiful. He looks like some Arabic model or something and looks horribly out of place in a school. Nick can just picture him riding some black stallion through the desert like a prince, with his perfect cheekbones, those deep brown eyes and the long lashes he really should be a model. He’s got one arm slung around the last guy, Niall.

Niall has baby blue eyes, blond messy hair, nearly too perfect white teeth (Nick assumes he had braces because nobody’s got teeth like that naturally) very creamy white skin and a very pretty face as well. What is it with the boys at this school, someone must feed them some kind of weird steroids to make them that pretty. It’s not fair.

“We’re not dogs, y’know?!” says Zayn and rolls his eyes. Niall laughs and snuggles even closer to Zayn. “But Liam would be such a sweet puppy! What do you think he’d be, a St. Bernard? Or maybe a golden retriever?” he asks and looks expectantly at Zayn, who grins fondly at him. “Nah, you’d be the golden retriever with your golden hair and all!” he laughs.

“Anyway”, Liam interrupts them loudly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Nick. It was about time that Hazza got a new roommate.”  
“Call me Grimmy, everyone does. And you all do music courses?” he asks while he sits down next to Harry and takes his sandwiches out of the tissue.

“Yeah we’re all gonna be famous musicians one day. We did agree on boyband didn’t we?”, Niall asks and that’s when Nick realizes that he’s the only one who doesn’t have sandwiches in the whole cafeteria, but delicious looking chicken wings.

“No! You said boyband I said band without the boy because boybands last for three years or something and bands are forever.” Harry protests and Niall makes a high-pitched noise.

“Excuse you, boybands _can_ last forever as well, if it’s the right people in the band.” And Harry is just about to argue right back when Nick decides to figure the food thing out.

“Will someone please explain to me why everyone has to put up with this stuff and Niall gets chicken wings?” he asks and manages to sound properly scandalized. Everyone at the table rolls their eyes but Niall who smiles contently.

“Because I’m irresistible!” he says and Nick snorts already waiting for the explanation but Harry shakes his head sadly.  
“I have to disappoint you and I can’t believe I’m saying this but Niall is actually telling the truth. For some reason there’s no one at this school who doesn’t at least like this stupid irish fella and he’s got the lovely cafeteria ladys charmed as well. They love him.” Harry says and shrugs going back to biting into his sandwich.

“It’s the accent. Nobody can resist that irish accent.” Liam says and squints his eyes together while looking at Niall.  
“Nah, it’s the whole appearance. The eyes and hair and skin and the way the whole fucking room lights up when he comes in, that stupid constant happiness of him.” Zayn laughs and nuzzles his face in Nialls hair, who laughs and pushes him away.

“Get off you idiot. I’m just an angel, that’s the secret. Just like Kelly always tells me.” he smirks which makes everyone roll their eyes again and they go back to eating.

The next time someone says something, Nick is half through his second sandwich. Harry raises his head and looks around the room his eyebrows drawn tight together.  
“Where’s Lou again? He wasn’t there for lunch either.” he says and looks worried now. Liam looks around too while Niall types something in his phone and Zayn calmly keeps on eating.

“You know Lou, he’s either doing some of his work which he could have done all weekend, but no he has to wait till Sunday evening, or he’s somewhere smoking or something.” Liam says and turns back to his plate.

“But if he’s gone for a smoke he could have told me or Zayn, I don’t like it when he’s out there by himself. Also we haven’t spent much time together this weekend.” Harry pouts, the eyebrows still drawn together and Nick thinks that must be uncomfortable or something, keeping that expression for such a long time.

“You mean, the two of you didn’t spend every second of the day together as usual. Come on Haz, the five of us spent the whole weekend together as always only today we’ve been doing the stuff we should have done on Friday and Saturday.” Zayn says rolling his eyes.

“We’ll go looking for him after dinner, yeah? Maybe we can watch a film together after that or go to the lake.” Liam says to calm Harry down whose expression finally loosens to that and the smile reappears.

“Yeah that would be nice. What do you think Grimmy? Would you be up for some searching for Lou and then a film or a sneak out to the lake?” Nick looks up a bit taken off guard, he didn’t really expect Harry to ask him to join him and his best mates for the evening, he’d actually planned to make it an early night but now that all those expectant eyes are turned on him he rethinks and well, maybe it’s actually a more exciting thing to hang out with Harry and his mates. And that’s what he came for after all, an exciting life.

So he smiles and says “Sure”.

+

After Niall finally ate all of his chicken wings the five of them start looking for this _Lou_ Person. First they look in the common room, ask a few people who all declare they “haven’t seen the Tommo since breakfast”. They split up after a while; Niall and Zayn go to Zayns room which he apparently shares with the boy and Liam, Harry and Nick go to some spots which are usual for him: the football field, generally the sport places, the public toilets and a bench in the small garden. When they all meet up Harry sighs.

“Okay so there’s only one place left where he could be and it’s actually quite fortunate that we were going to spend our evening there anyway,” he says and they go to the edge of the woods. Nick is actually a bit pissed at this boy that he doesn’t even know and who makes him search the whole school for him. just because he’s too much of a diva to tell his friends where he is. This is something Nick would _absolutely_ never do  and he has _never_ done something like this. _Absolutely not._

But at least he’s gotten quite a good tour through the school grounds and Liam and Harry told him everything he has to know, from where to smoke to how to play the best pranks on the teachers without getting caught. They go a bit through the woods, but always parallel to the school so they’re never so far away that they can’t see the school, until Harry takes a turn to the left and after a few meters they reach the lake Nick had caught a glimpse of at dinner.

It’s actually quite a nice lake: the water shimmers dark in the sun which has nearly disappeared and only sends a few weak sunbeams which lighten up the lake a bit. There are lots of wild bushes around the lake and there’s only one free spot by the lake which is only covered with grass. There, with his feet dangling in the water, sits a figure with angled legs and his arms slung around them. Nick immediately recognizes the figure from before on the fire escape/balcony thing.

“Lou!” Harry shouts and the figure turns around. It’s the most beautiful boy Nick has ever seen. He is petite, with tan glowing skin, ocean blue eyes and a brown fringe which shows under his dark blue beanie. He’s got a very nice angular face and incredibly long eyelashes and from what Nick can see an ass to die for. He’s wearing an oversized hoodie and black trousers and next to him there is a pair of small vans, no socks. Between his pink lips there’s a cigarette. Again.

“Hey! What’s going on ma- Who the hell is that?” he interrupts himself and stares at Nick as if he is some sort of alien, which is totally rude and Nick would’ve probably have had a lot to say about this, but right now he is way too distracted by this boy’s _voice_. Sweet and a bit hoarse and well, Nick really wants to kiss this one silly.

“Umm... Louis, this is Nick Grimshaw, my new roommate; he’s cool. Nick, this is my best friend Louis Tomlinson.”  
“Your bestest friend I would say since-”

“Not a word, Lou,” Liam interrupts but Louis goes on as he didn’t say anything.

“-since you have the habit of calling everyone your best mate. And I’ll just assume you’re another one of the hipster shits.” Louis says and somewhere in that sentence his voice turned from affectionate to mean. But if Nick is anything, then it’s witty and if this boy is going to judge him before even knowing him then he’s not going to keep his mouth shut.

“Well, I’m sorry we can’t all like the same mainstream music. The Fray, really?!” he says with a look to Louis’ hoodie.  
“Aren’t you a bit old to go here? Or did you have to well, stick around for a bit longer? Hey, it’s okay if you’re a bit retarded I’ll speak extra slow from now on, okay?” Louis shoots back and honestly, Nick has no idea how this turned into an argument, but he ignores Harrys shocked and sad eyes, Zayns eye roll and Nialls and Liams raised eyebrows, because the age comment is something he’s heard one too many times already.

“Oh, says the midget, seriously, have you looked at yourself?”  
“Yeah, I do that on a daily basis. No need to get offended, old man, do you want me to help you up?”

And that’s how it all starts.

+

It doesn’t take long for Nick to realize that if he wants to hang out with Harry and the boys it automatically includes Louis and that is something he’s got mixed feelings about, because, while Louis is simply the most beautiful thing in the world, he’s also the most annoying little shit. Monday morning at breakfast Harry introduces him to Pixie, Greg, Matt and Fiona who’re all in the same radio work centered courses as Nick and he likes them instantly. Louis calls them the “not-so-bad-hipster-shits” and Nick has to wonder what he’s done to be a _bad hipster shit_ or a hipster shit at all.

“Even though you obviously are a hipster shit, you must at least be a brave one if you’re really going to drink that coffee,” he says while sipping his tea. Nick hides the weird feeling he gets from those words, but as he tries the coffee he realizes that Louis was right it’s downright disgusting. Louis laughs at his face.

After breakfast Louis runs quickly off to a group of girls who loudly greet him with hugs and kisses. Nick wrinkles his forehead at the sight and stands up which makes Harry look up at him.

“Hey Grimmy, I’m sorry for Louis’ behavior okay? He can act a bit mean sometimes when it comes to new people and I guess you just surprised him yesterday. He’ll get used to you and then he’ll stop being like this.” He says and Nick can’t be mad when Harry looks so sincerely sorry.

“It’s alright Harry. No worries. See you at lunch?” he answers and Harry nods with a bright smile. Nick waves at Zayn (who’s passed out on the table), Niall (eating as always) and Liam (the only one waving back).

+

Radio courses are as he expected amazing. They’ve got two own radio stations and the first thing he has to do is choose the one he wants to work with: Either RH (which stands for Rosehill the name of the school) FM or Radio Rosehill. He’s the only new one his age so he’s basically standing in front of two courses (one containing about twenty people) with two teachers who all stare at him expectantly. He had had the chance to listen into the shows a bit and he has to admit they are both pretty good, but in the end he goes for RH FM, because he likes the name more and Matt, Fiona and Greg are part of that station. They all cheer for him when he joins them.

He gets informed about the way they do this after that. Apparently there’s two hours of theoretical stuff every day, where they plan what music to play, what they want to talk about and all that stuff. Then, there are obviously different roles at the station, some are hosts, some co-hosts, some are producers, there are people who do the news, people who plan the shows and people who pick out the music. There are also a few younger pupils running around between the studios of their stations their teacher Mrs. Reign (she’s actually more of a manager she tells him, this is more a real station than it’s a course) tells him they’re interns from the lower courses who get some kind of an insight in the work and their main task is bringing coffee and notes. She also tells him that only from 10th year on the pupils start working at the station before that they only get the theoretical stuff in the lower years.

“Normally we don’t let students into the radio classes when they didn’t start here at year 5, but since you’ve got lots of working experience the school decided to make an exception, so we’re all pretty curious of your skills.” Nick gulps and the teacher laughs at that. “No worries! I’m sure you’ll be great. Do you already know what you want to do? We’ve got lots of co-host spots open because you can never have enough of them, we don’t actually need any more news people or producers but there are lots of spots open in planning and DJ’ing the shows. And we’ve even got a spot open with the hosts.”

Nick raises his eyebrow, that’s unusual. Back home he had to work very hard to get to be a host of a small show at their local college’s radio station.

“Why’s that?” he asks.  
“Well, last year Chris Moyles did the RH FM Breakfast show but he graduated and well, there aren’t that many students who are actually interested in hosting, because it’s kind of a big responsibility, they don’t want to get up that early or they’re scared of failing because it will be kind of hard to step into Chris’ footsteps, he was very popular. But if you want to you can at least give it a try?!” she says with a warm, hopeful smile.

While they were talking she led him through the rooms which are their station: two normal classrooms, three studios, a conference room and some kind of a common room with lots of couches and armchairs and a fireplace. Now they’re in front of studio two there’s a schedule pinned to the glass door which says:

MON - FRI:

6.30 AM – 9.30 AM: BREAKFAST SHOW | HOST: ?  
9.30 AM – 12.30 PM: SHAKE UP UR SCHOOL DAY - SHOW | HOST: TAYLOR SWIFT  
12.30 PM – 3.30 PM: TURN THAT FROWN UPSIDE DOWN - SHOW | HOST: JESY NELSON  
2 HOURS RADIO COURSE  
5.30 PM – 8.30 PM: GOOD AFTERNOON! - SHOW | HOST: GREG JAMES  
8.30 PM – 11.30 PM: COUCH TALKING -SHOW | HOST: STAN LUCAS

11.30 PM – 6 AM: SEE SCHEDULE FOR STUDIO 1 (NIGHT STUDIO)  
SAT – SUN: SEE WEEKEND SCHEDULE ON STUDIO 3 (WEEKEND STUDIO)

“I’ll do it,” he says, Mrs. Reigns face lights up and she hurries away.

+

He spends the whole morning getting to know the station. Apparently, Matt is going to be his producer and Fiona and a guy named Ian are going to be his assistant producers, which is brilliant but he’s still terribly nervous even though he’ll only get to start tomorrow.

An intern is going to bring him breakfast to the studio when he’s doing the show but he has to promise to be super careful with eating in the studio and he can only do it when there are songs queued, but he can’t play more than three songs without a break and some talking in between.

Fiona also tells him that during school breaks, lunch, breakfast and dinner their stations are being played through the speakers in the school. On Mondays they play Radio Rosehill, on Tuesdays RH FM, on Wednesday Radio Rosehill and so on, and then the next week it’s turned around, so it’s RH FM on Monday, because otherwise Radio Rosehill would be played on Sundays and then on Mondays again.

But even though it’s this way, they have to do all of their shows every day, because a lot of students have free periods in between and the afternoon off and then they can listen to any radio station they want to (even though it’s kind of an unspoken rule that the students all listen to either RH FM or Rosehill Radio) and since last year there are also surprisingly many people who don’t even go to their school who listen to their shows, so there’s no free days just because of the school’s radio schedule.

During his first two periods Matt also tells him about the unofficial competition between RH FM and Rosehill Radio, he tells him that Mrs. Reign and Rosehill Radios teacher Mr. Strader don’t get on.

“Actually, I think they’ve got one of those love-hate things going on, you know? They are constantly arguing about who’s got the better station and all, but the problem is that there aren’t any big differences in the listeners ratios, always just very small differences and those change from day to day, but still they have to try to be better than the other and through that all of us have some kind of rivalry with the other station, but it’s all fun and games ‘til the _British School Radio Awards_ , you know those don’t you?”

+

He goes to Lunch with Pixie, Finchy, Greg and Ian, when they get to the cafeteria they split up and go to different tables, Nick heads over to the table where only Zayn and Louis sit. Zayn is talking quietly to Louis, who stares at his pancakes as if they’re the most disgusting thing in the world (which they probably are), and as Nick sits down he looks up and shoots him an evil smirk.

“ _Nick,_ how comes you’re still sitting with us and not with the rest of your new hipster friends, or are they already annoyed by you, as well?”  
“Oh, no Louis, I actually came over to put Zayn out of the misery of spending too much time with you alone,” Nick bites back and he _really_ can’t stop the shit-eating grin from appearing on his face.

Louis rolls his eyes.  
“I’ve heard you’re the new RH FM Breakfast show host, congrats!” Zayn says and Nick smiles gratefully at him.  
“Thanks, man. It’s really cool, I didn’t think I’d get the chance to host a show here, it’s amazing!”

“Oh god, that means I’ve got to listen to your annoying voice every other day in the morning. This is too much. Zee, I’m gonna die!” Louis whines and Zayn hits him lightly on the head.

  
“Shut up, Lou, and at least we’re rid of Moyles, now.” Zayn says with a grim look on his face and to Nicks surprise Louis gets a dull, sad look for a few seconds, but after a moment it’s back to the smirk and he starts throwing food at Nick, so maybe he just imagined it.

+

The rest of the day passes by, listening to the other show, having a course in media business, a meeting about the show tomorrow and in the evening he watches _Keeping up with the Kardashians_ with Harry.

+

On Tuesday morning he awakes at four AM thinking he missed his show so he puts his clothes on as fast as he can and just as he’s about to walk out of his room he looks at his clock and notices he still has two hours until the show begins.

Nevertheless, he goes down to the studio to find Mrs. Reign already bright and early sitting on a table together with nobody else, but the one and only Louis Tomlinson, in front of them are two cups and they’re engulfed into a conversation. He can’t help but notice how bright Louis’ eyes shine and how soft he looks with messy bed-hair and sleepy eyes.

When he closes the door behind him both of them turn to look at him and Mrs. Reign smiles, while Louis gets that smirk on his face that he always gets when he sees Nick. Nick has already started calling it _his_ smirk and he kind of really loves it, which is kind of really stupid and he’s never going to admit it to anyone.

“Good morning Nick. Are you here because you couldn’t sleep like poor Louis here or is it the nerves?” Mrs. Reign asks friendly.  
“Nerves, I guess.” He answers.

“Don’t worry, you can’t be as bad as the guy who did it last year,” Louis says and that’s kind of the first nice thing Louis has said to him, until- “Doesn’t mean you’re not gonna suck, obviously.”

And the Louis he knows is back but for some reason Louis’ snarky comments kind of calm him down. This is a weird life.

“Thanks Louis, I’m glad to know that you’re gonna hate it anyway.” Louis gives him a thumps up and jumps of the desk.

“Gonna fuck off for a smoke now, Laurie. See you later and Nick have a shit show!” he smirks and leaves the room. Mrs. Reign rolls his eyes with that fond look everyone always has when they’re rolling their eyes at Louis.

“He is the only one who gets away with this, so don’t even think about breaking three of the rules in front of me like he just did: Smoking on the school grounds, swearing and calling a teacher by their first name.”

+

“Good morning everyone, this is Nick Grimshaw and you’re listening to the RH FM Breakfast Show!” he says into the microphone and realizes satisfied that his voice doesn’t sound as nervous as he feels. Finchy, who’s sitting across from him at another desk, gives him a reassuring smile and Fiona at the desk next to him gives him a thumbs up. The notes in his hands are shaking, but he can still read them so he takes a deep breath and goes on.

“Hope y’all having a looovely Tuesday morning, because I’m having one, what about you Fiona?”  
“Yeah, it’s a great morning; sun shining and all. Maybe a bit cold for September, but still,” she says.

“Yeah, that’s right it’s 10 degrees outside; it’s time to buy a coat, I think. Well, I’m the new host of the breakfast show, because as we all know Chris Moyles graduated last year” Finchy presses a button and an _Awwww_ sound is playing. “Well, everybody’s gotta go at some point. Now, let’s start with a bit of Ariana Grande feat. Zed, this is _Break Free_ ” and the song starts playing.

It goes on like this for about an hour, he talks a bit about the school and what he has already experienced, mocks Finchy, plays songs and in between he gets a bit of a break while Tina does the news so he can eat the breakfast (a toast with marmalade, a coffee and scrambled eggs) an intern brought him. At 7.30 AM he goes on twitter and the website of the school to do some shoutouts.

“A big shoutout to Aimee who tweeted _great show, even though I’d like to not be woken up next time by Ariana Grande she’s an annoying_ and there’s a word I can’t say on the Radio, thanks and sorry Aimee I won’t do it again. Lucy says _Hi it’s my birthday today_ and happy birthday to Lucy, maybe me, Finchy and Fiona can sing you a birthday song” and they actually do that. He does a few more until he suddenly reaches a tweet by no one else but Louis Tomlinson.

“Oh, and see who also tweeted: It’s the loovely Louis Tomlinson telling me about how much he loves to wake up to my wonderful voice, as he writes, _blaring_ through the speakers. Well, thanks Louis. I try.” He smirks and goes on with his show, because he knows that Louis didn’t wake up to his voice, since he was already awake, so he doesn’t feel guilty about changing the content of the tweet.

_@grimmers @RHFM you know I rlly fucking hate waking up 2 ur annoying voice blaring through those speakers #stfu_

+

“It was _brilliant_.” Is the first thing Harry says at lunch, after giving him a bone crushing hug. “You were amazing, I laughed so hard when you told that story about your mums favorite dress.”  
Liam smiles at him warmly, Niall grins widely, Zayn nods at him and even Louis gives him a small smile, which almost instantly disappears again as they all congratulate him.

“Thanks guys, it was fun, I’m already looking forward to tomorrow.” He says happily. Louis raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth to say something probably very rude, but Harry interrupts him.

“So, Nick, tonight is the last night we’re allowed to swim in the lake, so there’s going to be a small grill party at the lake and everybody’s going to be there including you.”

+

Nick arrives at seven PM, because being fashionably late is his specialty and there’s already meat and sausages and corncobs on the grill which is being watched by Niall who’s wearing a snapback and a T-shirt over his trunks. On the bench next to the grill sit Liam and a teacher called Mr. Hayes (Nick thinks Harry has told him it’s their music teacher and he is pretty chill) who’s the teacher who’s supposed to watch them and prevent everyone from drowning, or setting the grill on fire or whatever teachers think pupils do in their free time.

Harry and some of his friends (including Pixie, Finchy and some redhead he saw a few times at lunch) walk over to him and Harry introduces the redhead as Aimee (the Aimee he gave a shoutout to this morning) and she’s very sharp, but also very funny and entertaining and they figure out they both love Ibiza and talk about their vacations there and promise each other to go there together sometime.

As it gets later and Harrys jokes get worse (he didn’t know that was even possible) he lets his eyes wander around until he spots Louis. He sits under the big weeping willow with Zayn and a few other guys passing a joint around, mostly hidden from the view of everyone by the branches.

He watches them for a few minutes until a boy with a beautiful long angular face, brown skin and black hair takes a drag, leans close to Louis and pushes his lips on Louis’ to blow the smoke into his mouth. That’s when he abruptly gets up from where he was sitting, ignores Harrys confused gaze and walks over to them.

“Hey Grimmy, want a drag?” Zayn asks as he sits down next to Louis who rolls his eyes at him but has the hint of a smile on his lips.  
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks,” he says.

He sits there with them for a long time and as it gets darker the others leave one after another, until it’s only Nick, Zayn and Louis left. Nick takes a look at his watch and okay, it’s 11 PM and he has to get up early for the show tomorrow, but he actually enjoys the banter and bickering he shared with Louis for the past few hours, Louis insulting just about everything about him from his hair to the way he’s decorated his side of his room (he didn’t even know that Louis had been in Harrys and his room and strangely it doesn’t bug him that he has, but it actually makes him feel a warm happy feeling which is totally confusing) and him firing back by calling Louis a midget and asking him if he can actually sing or if he’s just fooling them all, but then Louis actually started singing to demonstrate that, yes, he can sing and _he can_.

Fuck, he can.

Zayn gets up and pats Louis on the shoulder.  
“Gonna head to bed now, guys! Please don’t kill each other, be silent when you come to bed and don’t forget curfew starts in half an hour, so if you’re gonna break the rules don’t get caught. And Lou, we’ll talk about the thing tomorrow. No matter if you want to or not.” Louis rolls his eyes at that, Zayn nods at Nick and kisses Louis on the head and then he walks away.

They sit there in silence for a while but then Nick can’t hold it back anymore, has to ask the question which has been going through his head since lunch.

“Louis, when I was asked to take the spot as the presenter of the breakfast show, Mrs. Reign told me that the footsteps I was going to have to try and step in were kind of big. She told me that Chris was very popular and well-liked, but you and Zayn were talking pretty bad about him and you know normally I wouldn’t give a fuck about your opinion, but I kind of want to know how big the expectations actually are.” He says pretty fast to get it over with.

Louis scoffs and takes a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, offering one to Nick (who declines, he really likes his lungs, thank you), and then puts one between his lips and lights it. After a few seconds he takes the cigarette out again and breathes a cloud of smoke into the air and while his eyes are completely focused on Louis shiny, pink lips he can’t help but think _drama queen_.

“The thing with Moyles was that he was that dickish kind of funny, y’know? The kind of funny high school boys _really_ like and girls giggle at, he was a bit of a jock and the fact that he was also pretty smart made him kind of powerful. Your friend Finchy, for example, he worked with Moyles before you came and he actually was a target of many of that dick’s jokes, because that was a thing he was really good at: picking on the weaker ones. And you know Matt, he’s not one to really fight back, so he just let Moyles do what he wanted to do with him.” And this gives Nick something to think about, because the Matt he got to know is a funny, sweet and sometimes sassy boy who could be bossy if Nick talked over _newsbeat_ again. He decides that he really doesn’t like this Chris Moyles.

“Also I had some… _personal issues_ with him, but that doesn’t matter. He was a dick and now he’s gone.” Nick doesn’t know what he should say so he just keeps quiet. For a while all he hears is Louis’ sucking in and blowing out smoke, a few birds and the wind moving the water of the lake and making small waves.

After maybe half an hour Louis has smoked through a few cigarettes and Nicks eyes are close to dropping shut, but then suddenly Louis stands up and pulls his sweater over his head. Nick stares at him, because _seriously_ it’s freaking cold and if Louis is going to do what Nick thinks he is going to do, then he might actually be a lot more stupid than Nick had originally thought.

Louis grins at his expression and steps, now only wearing his trunks, closer to the water. Nick can see goosebumps on his tan skin, but Louis doesn’t let the fact that he must be freezing show on his face.

“C’mon Grimshaw, don’t you want to break the rules for once?! You didn’t want a smoke and that’s okay, but at least join me with this, yeah? This is more fun together than alone, even if it’s with _you_!”

  
And Jesus, that little devil has incredible collarbones and Nick can’t turn his eyes away from his body as Louis turns around and walks into the water. With his eyes on Louis’ _spectacular_ bum, he slips out of his clothes and follows the smaller boy into the lake.

As to be expected it’s fucking cold and Nick grits his teeth at the fact that Louis has him pretty much under control with his stupid smile and stupid eyes and _idiotic_ bum. After a while they’re deep enough in to actually start swimming and it’s incredibly endearing to see Louis enjoying himself so much. He seems so happy in the water and his strides are long and elegant. He’s absolutely done with this boy.

“Isn’t this just the coolest thing you’ve ever done?” Louis asks with shining eyes when they reach the middle of the lake and Nick rolls his eyes and does absolutely not smile.

 “It’s fun, I guess, but I can’t really concentrate since my balls are freezing off.” He says and Louis laughs at that.

“I would offer you to warm them up if I wouldn’t have such a clear distaste in you and if I wouldn’t have a boyfriend.” He answers and Nick raises his eyebrows because he didn’t know that Louis has a boyfriend and okay, maybe they only know each other two days, but it feels like it’s been longer.

+

They don’t get caught, but Nick is pretty tired at Breakfast show the next day. It was worth it, he tells himself.

+

The next two weeks pass by in a blur, maybe because nothing really special happens. Nicks slowly gets used to doing the breakfast show every day, hangs out with Aimee, Matt, Fiona, Pixie and some other people from the station like Ian, Sarah and the two inseparable best friends Dan and Phil.

He eats with Harry’s boys (“We’re not _Harry’s boys_ you can either call us _Niall & the potatoes_ which is the most brilliant name ever, or, which is nearly as brilliant, _One Direction_ ”, yeah no he’ll call them Harry’s boys) bickers with Louis, talks to Harry about bands, listens to Liams advice (basically _don’t do anything Louis asks you to do_ ), has a discussion with Niall about irish folk music and gets Zayn to tell him about his girlfriend (Harry whispers to him that she looks exactly like Niall except for the fact that she has Lady parts).

At the weekends he goes to the small town near the school with his radio friends, calls his parents and tries to do at least some of his homework.

It’s on Friday, nearly three weeks after school begun, that he meets Louis Tomlinson’s boyfriend for the first time. The day started of pretty good with him starting a new feature called the _Nixtape_ on the Breakfast show, even though he and Perrie Edwards, who presents Radio Rosehills Breakfast show and is also Zayns girlfriend (and she really does look a lot like Niall), fight about it an entire hour, because she claims it comes too close to her _Perrie’s throwback mix,_ which is ridiculous, because Nick didn’t even knew Radio Rosehill _had_ a throwback mix and also, because she plays songs from like the 70’s, so it’s completely different music, but whatever.

When he enters his and Harrys room after that, he is surprised to see all the boys in the room. Niall sits on the floor, his guitar on one knee, laughing at some joke Harry must’ve made (Niall is the only one who laughs at Harry’s jokes), Harry is on the chair by the desk, Liam and Zayn sit on the bed and Louis on the window still. A cigarette in his mouth again and okay, Nick is supposed to _sleep_ here.

“Oh, hey Grimmy!” Harry greets him cheerfully.  
“Hiya, what are you lot doing here? Thought you’ve got classes.”  
“Nah, Hayes is sick with the flu or something, so we’ve got the day of. Actually we were just waiting for you, we’re going to the city and you’re joining us.” Harry grins like it’s the best idea he’s ever had.

“Umm, I actually wanted to do some homework…” he says carefully, but Niall waves him off.  
“Nopes you’re coming with us. It’s Friday and Fridays aren’t only the only days where we don’t have the stupid normal classes like maths and shit, but also the days where you still have two days left to do your homework. And, mate, you haven’t tried the Nandos here, yet, and that’s something you should go to jail for!”

So two hours later they sit in Nandos and Nick was never really enthusiastic about fastfood and sorts but he’s not going to say that in front of Louis, because he knows he’ll be made fun of if he does. After a few minutes a guy suddenly shows up and, holy shit, he’s hot. He’s got that kind of surfer style you don’t really expect in England: Blond, tan, with muscles, a pretty face and blue eyes. The guy walks over to them and Nick notices that he must be a few years older than them, maybe twenty one or something.

He stops in front of them, leans forward and kisses Louis on the lips.  
Nick is so screwed.

+

Later he finds out that the guys name is Zac and that he is Louis’ boyfriend who studies English Lit. and he is actually very nice and smart, but Nick instantly despises him, because for two hours his arm is slung around Louis’ waist and he smiles at Louis like he’s the sun and the stars and the moon.

The thing is, even though Louis is a little shit and annoying and has judged him for everything he is before even knowing him, he is _Nicks_ sun and moon and stars and he just wishes this crazy model-who-isn’t-a-model guy would fuck off, so Louis can stop being sweet and romantic with him and start fighting with Nick like they always do.

He spends the rest of the weekend sulking.

+

On Wednesday there’s a school event. Harry told him during their French class (which they both equally hate) that the school apparently has an Event Club full of crazy people who make up the most ridiculous events and insist on everyone taking part. He isn’t surprised that Niall is part of the club.

The event is apparently the day of the plants (During Lunch break Niall shouts “IT’S MARIJUANA DAY EVERYBODY!” through the speakers and Nick has no idea how he got away with it, but Louis declares while pretending to wipe tears from his eyes that he has “Never been so proud.”) and so everything is stuffed full of plants and there are these weird little garlands in the shape of maple leaves; Nick is pretty sure they are actually meant to stand for Canada, but he doesn’t tell Niall.

In the evening Niall tells them through the speakers to dress up as a plant and come down for dinner. The really crazy thing is that most people actually do what Niall has told them without even questioning it, he passes a guy dressed as a palm tree and a girl who has actually glued thousands of leaves to her whole body and grips his potted plant (which he stole from a bathroom as a disguise) tighter, ready to hold it in front of his face in case he meets someone from the Event Club.

In the cafeteria Niall and Louis are wrapped up in a fight about the fact that Louis does not have a costume.

“But I have one, Nialler. It’s not my fault that it’s not allowed to smoke pot in school or do coke, by the way, because both comes from plants.” Niall pouts and snuggles into Zayns shoulder who wraps his arm around him.

Zayn has drawn a sick bark onto his skin which actually looks like real bark from a tree and Niall wears a t-shirt, a bracelet and shoes full of lucky charms printed on them which make him the biggest cliché in the room. The other guys aren’t there yet, but suddenly Louis sends him one of his wicked grins which means he’s got an idea.

“Hey Grimshaw, wanna go to the woods?”

+

“So, you feeling proper homey now?” Louis asks as they sit down by the lake and takes out another pack of cigarettes. Nick has no idea how he can pay for them all, but then he thinks he actually doesn’t want to know. He shrugs.

“I guess so, even though you don’t really contribute to it, darling.” Louis sticks his tongue out and offers him a cigarette, but when Nick shakes his head he rolls his eyes and puts the cigarette in Nick’s hands.

“It’s time you start living up to the expectations of being a boarding school boy. Live a little, break some rules and hearts if you can.”  
And the crazy thing is that Nick always swore to himself that he’d never be stupid enough to smoke and now he’s doing it because of Louis Tomlinson and his stupid blue eyes and his smirk and everything that is just so _him_.

Because Louis is the realest person he has ever met and at the same time the biggest mystery, he feels like there are so many layers on Louis, so many things yet to be explored and he can’t stop feeling like he _needs_ to learn everything about him. He wants to know what kind of books Louis likes to read, what he does after waking up, what he dreams of and if he wears socks to bed. And that’s the moment when Nick realizes that he is completely and terribly in love with this insulting, complicated, sweet, fucked up boy.

“You look like you’re rethinking your whole life, c’mon one smoke won’t kill you,” he says as he walks over to a tree while Nick stays sitting by the water. After a while Louis comes back with a bottle of rum in his hands and a wide smile on his face.

“Good old Nialler always keeps some booze here, just in case, y’know?!”  
Nick really doesn’t.

So they sit down and Nick takes a big sip, cringing at the taste and handing it over to Louis who does the same. Then he brings the cigarette up to his lips and inhales. He coughs it out right after that and Louis laughs at him, his eyes crinkle and his whole face kind of scrunches up and _lights_ up. It’s quite a beautiful sight.

“Have I ever told you that I’ve got sisters?” he asks taking another sip of the bottle and as Nick shakes his head he goes on. “Yeah, got four of them and a little brother. Last ones were born a few months ago, Ernest and Doris.” Nick takes a sip.

“Can’t imagine what it must be like. I’ve got two and they’re both much older, brother and sister,” Nick says thinking of Andy and Jane and he automatically has to smile.  
“Really? I thought you were the annoying know-it-all big brother, but now I can totally picture you as the even more annoying younger brother.” Nick laughs and takes the bottle again.

“See, I enlighten you all the time. But tell me about your sisters, the ones who aren’t babies anymore, obviously.” He says because he actually is genuinely interested. Louis smiles and lays back into the grass; his hair is long enough to actually surround his face a bit and Nick has to think of an angel. (even though it’s cheesy and so _not_ Nick)

“The oldest one is Fizzy. Fizzy and I are actually the only ones with brown hair; all of our other siblings are blonde. Fizzy’s got a boyfriend now and mum says he’s a good guy. The other two are actually twins, Phoebe and Daisy, they’re only nine and Fizzy is fourteen. They’re all actually my half-sisters, because my dad fucked off early and my mum married my sisters’ dad then… I really liked him, but it didn’t really work out, they got a divorce and now she’s married to another guy, the dad of Ernest and Doris, he’s nice and treats her well so I’m happy for her and all.” Nick is quiet after Louis is done because he doesn’t really know what to say, the only thing that comes to his mind is how hard it must have been for Louis to grow up under all of these circumstances.

“How- I mean, how did you handle it all?” he asks carefully, but Louis doesn’t seem to be in his sarcastic remarks and insults mood right now, maybe he is already too drunk and that makes Nick kind of sad because he doesn’t want him to have to be drunk to tell him about all of this.

“Umm… I got a few jobs to help mum with the girls, did a lot of babysitting and tried not to spend too much money. It’s only because of my mum’s new husband, Dan, that I can go to this school, he’s got lots of money. Sometimes I think I haven’t earned any of this, you know? Going to this school and everything. I’m not as good as the other lads anyway and what have I done to deserve this kind of education and this kind of friends and all? There are loads of people out there who are ten times as talented as me and they don’t get this chance, just because they don’t have the money. It’s not fair.” Louis’ voice has gotten quieter and he takes sips between his sentences.

Nick carefully takes the bottle out of his hand and doesn’t let his hand go after that. And it feels like that’s enough, that this little gesture says everything Nick wants to say: that Louis deserves everything and more, that he _is_ fucking talented and should never sell himself short and that every other person who’d grown up under those circumstances would have probably cracked under the pressure.

“You know, you’ve got quite a pronounced Line of Life here, means you’re healthy and gonna live a long life, Tomlinson. Actually, all you’re lines are very pronounced, look those are the lines of Heart, Marriage, Health, Success, Fate, Life and Head. You’re pretty good with everything, as it seems. There are also some other things like something about Venus here” He draws a half-circle in Louis’ palm under his middle and ring finger. “It’s something about your temperament and your emotions but I forgot what it was.”

Louis smiles at him and squeezes his hand.  
“I’m gonna look it up.” Nick says and suddenly Louis’ face is very close to his. He raises the hand that isn’t intertwined with Louis’ and touches his face. He lets his fingers slide over his cheekbones and chin and then to his lips, his soft pink lips. Louis giggles and presses a kiss on Nick’s finger. Yep, they are definitely drunk.

“You know if I didn’t have a boyfriend I would kiss you now,” Louis says and he sounds a bit breathless.

“Then let’s pretend like you don’t have a boyfriend for a while.” Nick says and presses his lips to Louis’, feeling all fuzzy and warm and so damn _happy_ inside, because he’s kissing the most beautiful, infuriating, selfless boy right now and he is _so_ in love with him.

+

“You did what?” Fiona asks him and nearly spills her tea about all of her notes which earns her an annoyed glare from Matt. Nick really wishes he would be able to keep things to himself or that he would have friends who don’t love gossiping so much, but sadly none of those things are the case, so he has to deal with not only a massive hangover and an early radio show, but also his scandalized friends.

“I didn’t mean to and we were both drunk.” He says knowing that it’s a stupid excuse, because of course he has feelings for Louis Tomlinson and of course what he did last night was stupid and not fair to Louis _or_ his boyfriend, but he couldn’t help himself.

“Okay, but what are you going to do now?” Ian asks looking skeptically at him.  
“Pretending nothing has happened?” he answers and at that LMC and Fiona snort.

“What?”  
“Neither you, nor Louis can actually do that. If you haven’t noticed yet, the two of you are possibly the loudest attention whores at this school. So there’s gonna be a bitch fight and hopefully some kissing because, damn, I would kill to watch you two making out I bet it’s, like, super hot.” LMC says and Fiona nods enthusiastically while Ian makes an “Ew” sound and Matt is facepalming.

“Back to work everybody, the record is over in ten seconds Nick,” Finchy says rolling his eyes.

“Hi everybody, this was _Fall Out Boy_ with _My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark_ and Grace has just tweeted that she loooves that record, well me too Gracey, me too.” He says into the microphone while spinning his chair around.

“Yesterday night was quite interesting with all the plants and everything, but don’t you forget that we’ve got another big event coming up next Monday it’s the official Rosehill bake off which is apparently some kind of tradition, so everybody is committed to bake a cake, but that’s not all. Before, you’ve got to draw a name out of a box the lovely Niall Horan will bring to all the classes on Friday and you have to find a recipe and think of an idea of how to well style the cake and on Monday we’re all meeting up in the cafeteria to start baking; the classes are canceled for Monday and even the teachers have to participate. I, for one, am hoping for Mrs. Reign to get Mr. Strader and the other way around because that would be truly beautiful cakes.”

“I’m sure you’re right about that, but you’ve got someone you’d like to get as well, haven’t ya, Grimmy?”

He shoots Fiona a dirty glance.  
“‘Course Fifi, I’m hoping to get you, so I can bake you a lemon cake and write _Thanks for nothing_ on it.”

Fiona sticks his tongue out at him and he’s safe for the day.

+

His friends were wrong, he and Louis are amazingly good at pretending nothing happened, they keep on bickering after a few awkward glances at the beginning and then it’s like nothing happened. Nick doesn’t know if he’s sad or happy about this.

+

On Friday Niall comes up to him and lets him pick a name and he gets some year 7 girl which kind of bores him, because all of this is kind of boring if you don’t get someone you actually know. Niall forbids them to tell anyone who they got, but Harry and him still spend all weekend brainstorming about what cakes to bake and what to draw on them. Harry tells him he’s actually very good at baking, even works at a bakery over the summer holidays and gives him some advice; he picked the math teacher Mr. Miller which is really just bad luck.

On Sunday Louis comes over to their room and whines about the cake event, because “I can’t bake for shit” and Nick pets his head affectionately which makes Louis stick his tongue out. It’s crazy how normal all of this seems. In the evening the other boys show up and they decide to watch _Men in Black._ Nick falls asleep ten minutes into the movie.

+

“You’ve got one hour and then the cake has to be ready to be put into the oven, no cheating and good luck!” Niall screams into the microphone and Nick thinks that nobody should ever give Niall a microphone again.

He stands next to Harry and Matt and across from him are Louis and Zayn. Louis is wearing one of the aprons they’ve been given and _nobody_ should look that good in an apron.

Nick quickly starts throwing ingredients into a bowl for the lemon cake he decided to bake. It’s boring, but he doesn’t see any sense in baking a special cake for some 7th year girl he doesn’t even know. He throws looks over to Louis who has his tongue sticking out through his lips in a concentrated manner and Nick can’t stop himself from gushing about this because it’s _adorable._

After some time there’s a loud _beep_ echoing through the hall and everybody steps back from their table, Louis looks actually quite content, Harry happy and Zayn bored out of his mind.

Niall runs over to them and jumps on Zayn’s back who cracks into a smile.

“Now, my friends, it’s time to put your lovely cakes into the oven and do some chatting for the next half hour until the cakes are finished.” He shouts and Nick grabs his cake pan and walks over to the kitchen where lots of ovens are already ready to be filled.

Just as he’s about to put his cake into the oven someone pulls his hair.  
“That actually looks more like mud than anything else.” says Louis with one of his unbearable smirks.

“Yours doesn’t look any better.” Nick shrugs, puts it into the oven and walks away, Louis following him.

“You offend me Nicholas, let me tell you that I’m the king of cakes, King Louis I. of cakery they call me.” Nick raises his eyebrows.

“Cakery? Really? Well, then, your majesty, we can surely expect a lot of your creation over there.” He says and points over his shoulder back to the kitchen. “And how did you find out about Nicholas?”

“Oh, I broke into the secretary’s office on Sunday and took a look into your file. Nicholas is such a pretentious name for such a pretentious person. It suits you; it shall be your name from now on.” Nick doesn’t see a point in reminding him that it actually is his name.

An hour later the cakes are fully finished and decorated and put on a long table so that everyone can search their own personal cake. Nick walks along the table, passes his own (he wrote _congrats on the face_ on it because he wanted to be nice, he hopes the girl won’t take it the wrong way, he doesn’t want to explain his sexuality to some 7 th year with a crush) and suddenly stops in front of a cake with a little card saying his name in front of it.

It’s an ugly brown cake which doesn’t really have a shape and he is sure that was on purpose. It says: _you’re my favorite pretentious hipster dick_ in pink icing and underneath that someone drew a dick. Truly beautiful.

“Do you like it?” a voice whispers close to his ear and Nick smiles and turns around to wrap Louis into a tight hug. Louis struggles and tries to get out of it, but Nick only pulls him in tighter.

“Very inspiring and creative, King Louis I. of cakery, you shall make a museum and put all your creative cakes in there.”  
“Right?! I always say that, but those dicks keep saying they can’t find a museum big enough.” Louis grins and Nick chuckles.

He doesn’t know when they became people who joke with each other, but he really likes it. Likes this boy.

+

“It’s the sixth of October, sweethearts and it is cold outside. Isn’t this lovely? I just love autumn, it’s cuddly and you have lots of excuses to just stay inside and drink a hot chocolate. What do you think Fifi?”  
“I love autumn as well, Nick, thanks for asking. Actually I’ve already decorated mine and LMCs room; it’s full of little pumpkins and leaves, now.”

Nick giggles when he sees LMCs unimpressed face, he can just guess her opinion about autumn decorations, but before he can say anything about that his phone lights up and he quickly starts a song so that he can look at his new message. It’s from Louis who is supposed to have biology right now and it’s a little ghost emoji, he’s also written “let me haunt you”

Nick really has to learn to control his facial expressions, because he _knows_ he’s smiling all dorky at his phone again. Louis Tomlinson is a disease and he’s infected.

“Well well, that was _Take me to church_ by Hozier and right after that _Fireflies_ by Ron Pope. What a pope… now it’s time to inform you of an upcoming party because we’re getting close to… HALLOWEEN!” They all cheer loudly at that word except for LMC who rolls her eyes.

“Seriously, why is it such a big deal, guys. It was cool when everyone was young, but do we really _have_ to go trick or treating? It’s an American holiday anyway!” Ian looks at her as if she had just declared she was an alien.

“LMC my dearest, that’s another school tradition we can’t ignore. For everyone who’s a newbie just like me: Every Halloween the whole school does the usual trick or treat thing, but the pupils from year 5 to 9 are allowed to go trick or treating from 6 to 9 pm and they are only allowed to go to the pupils from year 10 to 13 and from 10 pm to 12 pm it’s the year 10 to 13’s turn. YAY! From 12 am to 5 am there’s also a Halloween party for the year 9 to 13’s. And, of course everyone has to dress up, I just got a text from a friend and there was an emoji in there and I don’t know if that was a hint about their costume.” Nick grins when he gets another text with an emoji that sticks it’s tongue out.

“Well it depends I guess, but Nick we’re late for the news, _again,_ so please…” Matt actually looks desperate so Nick sticks his tongue out and gives Tina a thumbs up.

+

“One day I want to climb the Lhotse.” Louis says and Nick raises his head from the paper he is writing for his French class, he didn’t even notice that Louis came into the room; he can be so quiet if he wants to. Now he sits on Harry’s bed (It’s a Saturday and Harry and Niall are at the Royal Liverpool golf course…playing golf) and throws a pillow in the air.

“What?” Nick asks, throws his paper back into his bag and manages to get into a sitting position.  
“C’mon lets go to the football field!” Louis says then and Nick realizes he doesn’t really have an opinion in this.

The football field is quite big and has big tribunes around it; Louis plays on the team, but Nick didn’t go to the first game which was two weeks ago at the end of September and the next one is going to be at the beginning of November and Nick is planning to go to that one.

It’s cold outside and Nick pulls his coat closer around himself. Louis has a thick scarf around his neck and his nose sticks out of it, a little red which looks really cute. _Stop it, Nick!_

“So how’s Zac?” Nick asks as they get closer to the football field, he really wants to slap himself for that question.  
“He’s alright, I guess. Don’t see him much now; he’s busy with college and all, y’know? Actually you don’t Nicholas, because you’re a lazy radio student!” Louis smirks and Nick laughs and takes Louis into a friendly headlock. He drags him along until their standing by the tribunes, then Louis frees himself, grabs his hand and runs up the stairs until they’re at the highest seats and they sit down there, laughing and out of breath.

When they are finally able to catch their breaths Nick looks at Louis and he can’t help himself, Louis looks so beautiful like this. With red cheeks and his face all scrunched up from laughing, wrinkles by his eyes and his long eyelashes fanning over his cheeks, covering up his blue, blue eyes. His whole face is lit up like the sun, like he’s every star in Nicks own personal universe. The stars and the sun and the moon and even the countless black holes, even the nothing, everything in Nicks universe seems to be Louis, and the most scariest part is that Nick doesn’t care. He wants Louis to be his whole universe forever, he doesn’t want to change the fact that Louis has become everything to him, that there literally is nothing else but Louis for him.

All his life Nick always wanted more from living, he didn’t want to be 17 and think this is all I’ll ever get, all I’ll ever want, but right now he’s perfectly content with his life only being about watching this beautiful boy, his only goal being keeping this boy, this wonderful complex boy who managed to turn Nicks whole world around, to capture his heart in only a few weeks.

“You said something, back in your room. About wanting to climb?” he says to distract himself, because he shouldn’t think about Louis that much, it makes him feel dizzy and warm. But most of all, it makes him want to kiss Louis, and that he can’t do.

“Yeah the Lhotse, it’s a mountain.” Nick has never heard of it.

“Yeah and why? Where is it?” he asks and Louis smiles sadly and looks across the football field.

“That’s the point you know?! The Lhotse is basically right next to the Mount Everest, it’s 7986 meters high, but everyone always only cares about the Mount Everest, because it’s the highest mountain and all, but the Lhotse is pretty high as well and I guess I feel sorry for it, even if it sounds stupid. I know how it feels, always being forgotten, because there’s someone better than you near you. Always being second best.”

Nick looks at him sadly, because how could _Louis_ ever be second best. He doesn’t really know who Louis is talking about, he doesn’t know who hurt Louis that bad, who made him that sad, he doesn’t understand it, but he wishes that someday he’ll figure all of Louis’ secrets out. He wants to be there for him, wants Louis to lean on him so that they can share the weight of his many, many secrets.

“And I think it would be so cool to just climb up there. You can probably see so much from up there and the air must be so- I don’t know it just seems so incredible to me, yeah? I haven’t seen much in my life and that would be just amazing, I have actually never been on a mountain. But if I had the chance I’d probably be too scared.” Louis goes on and Nick carefully takes his hand.

“I looked up the Venus thing.” He says. “It’s the Girdle of Venus and since it’s so close to the heart line, it’s also called the sister of the heart line and if someone has both, like you do they say it means that you have double supply of heart qualities, but not in the physical sense, in the metaphorical sense. Also Venus is the roman goddess of beauty and love which makes sense, since you’ve got that line.” The last sentence just slips out of Nick’s mouth, but he doesn’t take it back, just keeps on caressing Louis’ Heart line as if he could actually feel his heart beating through it.

When he looks up again, Louis is looking at him and there is something in his eyes; Nick can’t quite put a finger on it, but he thinks he saw something like love or adoration in it. He quickly scolds himself that that was his imagination playing tricks on him; Louis has a boyfriend, he is _in love_ with his boyfriend and he has only just started seeing Nick as something like a friend, he has only just started trusting Nick.

+

Halloween comes faster than imagined and suddenly Nick has to worry about a fitting, good-looking costume (Harry keeps trying to get him to go as his twin pumpkin, but- _just no._ ) When he has finally found himself a nice Jack-the-Ripper-costume it’s a day before Halloween and everyone is properly excited for it.

The last few days he kept trying to get Louis to tell him what he’s going to wear, but Louis insists he’s not telling him, because it’s a surprise and all that crap. Zayn already informed him about the fact that someone was going to put alcohol in the drinks, just to be careful, because Liam for example has only one kidney, so he can’t drink and Harry joked “We don’t _actually_ want someone to die that night.” And then Louis winked and ruffled Nicks quiff while saying “Oh I’d like to” which led to Nick chasing him through the whole cafeteria.

Nick always found Halloween super coo,l because it’s just fun pretending to be someone else for a night and he loooves to dress up and candy is _always_ great. Right now it’s the day (Halloween is on a Friday this year) and Nick is standing in front of his mirror throwing his fake knife from one hand to the other and looks skeptically at his tie when the door slams open.

Apparently, Harry actually did go for the pumpkin thing, or at least Nick thinks that’s what that big orange paper-maché thing is supposed to be. He flashes Nick a blinding smile, opens his arms and gives him a twirl, which leads to some fake clapping from Nick.

“Don’t I look awesome? I’m _so_ ready for this party.” He says. Nick looks at the clock and realizes that it’s gonna be 12 am in five minutes.

“Did you get a lot of candy?” Nick asks. He went out for trick and treating from 10 to 11 pm and Harry did the last hour, because Nick wanted to finish his hair for the party. Harry grins and empties his big shopping back on Nicks bed, at least one million chocolate bars fall out of it, plus various other types of sweets and Nick has to swallow and think of what his personal trainer is going to say about this.

“Now, it’s time to party!” Harry says and drags him out of the room. On the corridors they meet a lot of other people who are on their way downstairs to the party. When they reach the doors to the gym (where the party is going to be) Nick is seriously starting to worry about the excessive decorations which had already been everywhere else in the school building and he doesn’t know if he actually wants to see what the gym will look like. He’s never been jump-scared as often as today and he really doesn’t want to get a heart attack, especially not with seventeen.

He can hear the music from several hundred meters away, they’re playing _Anaconda_. Nick wants to shoot himself.

The gym is – creepy. But good creepy. It’s full of fake skeletons and spider webs and pumpkins and candles, basically all Halloween party decoration you have ever seen put into one room. He can’t even recognize the gym anymore.

The room is already full of people and most of them are dancing, he sees at least five girls dressed up as a hot nurse which is oh so original. They walk over to the bar as _The Big Bang_ by _Rock Mafia_ starts playing and Nick thanks heaven but takes it back when he sees Zac, Louis’ boyfriend leaning against the buffet table, dressed as Dracula himself, but still looking crazily hot which annoys Nick to hell. Next to him are Matt (as a Zombie) and his girlfriend Lizzie (as a Zombie as well) and he can see Zayn (vampire) and Niall (water corpse), giggling and whispering to each other, standing at the bar.

He tries to walk over to the two boys, but Harry grabs his hand and pulls him over in the direction where Zac, Lizzie and Matt are standing.

“Hiya!” Harry shouts and slings an arm over Zacs shoulder. “How are you, Zac? I didn’t know you were coming!” Zac laughs and shrugs.

“Well Lou asked kind of last minute, said something about me probably being too busy and shit but as if I would miss out on the chance to see my hot boyfriend all dressed up and dancing with me.” Something about the way Zacs eyes shine when he says that makes Nick want to chop his head off, he could make it look like an accident, switch his fake knife for a real one and pretend he didn’t notice and was trying to make a joke but – okay, he has to stop it now or he’s actually going to be in jail by tomorrow.

But then Louis comes from behind Zac and he looks…stunning. He’s dressed as a Zombie as well, with rags hanging from his shoulders and his face is unnaturally white, his blue eyes standing out even more, and they’re bloodshot and look a bit crazy. He steps behind Zac and says “Boo!” in his ear which makes Zac shriek and turn around.

He wraps Louis in his arms and pulls him close to his chest.  
“May I kiss you, Zombie-boy?” he asks with a smirk, but Louis shakes his head.  
“You may not, because you are an enemy of mine, Dracula. My only friends are Jack the mighty Ripper and the great pumpkin Harry Styles.” He flashes a smile, kisses Zac on the cheek and drags Nick and Harry over to the bar.

“Let’s get this party started!” he shouts and Nick tries to prepare himself for the millions of shots he is going to be drinking tonight.

He’s not prepared enough, as he figures out later. Nothing could have prepared him for that night.

+

It’s three in the morning and Harry has his arms wrapped around Nick like a monkey, Niall and Zayn are singing karaoke (a strangely pitched version of _Barbie Girl_ ), Liam is snogging Sophia Smith and somehow Perrie Edwards ended up in a trash can with a sign around her neck saying “Surprise Bitch”. Nick doesn’t know what’s real and what isn’t anymore, but he is happy and that is all he wants and needs.

Until he looks over to the dance floor and sees Zac and Louis dancing very slowly, well, if you can call that dancing, to Nick it’s more grinding and slow sex on the dancefloor. It makes his heart ache, especially when he sees Zacs hand on Louis’ bum, how Louis throws his head back and closes his eyes, he can see his eyelashes, those long, dark lashes casting shadows on his cheeks and then Louis opens his eyes and it’s like the movies when their eyes meet and he can feel a spark and he knows Louis feels it too, no matter how cheesy it sounds.

That’s the moment when the chorus of _Fireflies_ starts and Ron Popes voice echoes from the boxes, singing about autumn leaves and how beautiful things never last and it feels a lot like magic until the moment is over and Louis beautiful blue eyes turn back to Zac and stare at him and he whispers something in his ear which makes him smile in a dirty and lazy way. They disappear in the crowd again and Nick tries not to start crying, because he loves this boy so much more than Zac ever could and he doesn’t know when he became that person.

Someone, who can’t let go, can’t accept that he’s fighting a battle that’s already lost. That was never who he was and he never thought that he would become that person. It’s weird and it hurts, but he knows that he can’t let go of Louis, not now.

+

He stays away from Louis for two weeks, keeps himself busy with his upcoming exams, his radio show and his other friends. Harry is a bit confused, because Nick doesn’t hang out with him as much, because where Harry is there’s Louis as well, but he doesn’t say anything about it.

But two weeks after the party the first game of the Rosehill Lions (that’s what their football team is called and Nick laughs about it for half an hour while Harry pouts and says that it’s because they’re majestic and wild which makes Nick laugh even harder) comes up and apparently you’re an enemy and betrayer of the nation if you’re not going, so there’s that.

Thing is: Nick hates football. He thinks it’s boring to watch and he really doesn’t like boring things, but what he does like is seeing Louis Tomlinson running around in shorts and sweating and, oh, he might be drooling a bit over the boy he shouldn’t be in love with anymore.

He sits next to Finchy who is preoccupied with texting his girlfriend, while Ian and Aimee are talking about some pizza hat they want to buy and Fiona chews on one of the French fries and watches with a bored expression how the players walk onto the field.

Nick has no idea what’s happening in the game, he is too busy staring at Louis’ thighs. Half way through Matt falls asleep on his shoulder and he can’t even be mad, because he knows the poor boy has been torturing himself with his exams, because he’s some kind of a workaholic when it comes to his grades (Fiona told him Matt actually passed out from stress last year and had to be brought to a hospital, because of a lack of sleep and food and too much stress, but eventually it always worked out alright and Matt was always the one with the best grades).

Nick’s eyes are close to dropping shut, as well, when it happens. He doesn’t even really see what happens, there’s lots of legs and a ball and suddenly Louis lies on the field and won’t move. It gets pretty loud after that, but Nick can’t actually hear anything he just looks at Louis and tries to process what just happened.

+

It’s nothing too bad. A ligament rupture the doctors say, but the bigger question is what caused the fall and whose fault it was. Another player was involved, but he swears he didn’t do anything and that Louis just fell over out of nowhere and bent over his foot. Louis says he has no idea, something happened, there was pain and then everything got black.

Harry and a teacher drive him to the doctors and Harry tells Nick all of it in the evening. He can’t sleep that night, so he wanders through the building, until he gets to the auditorium and hears loud voices from inside, so he carefully steps through the door and there are Louis and Zac on the stage, shouting at each other.

“You NEVER tell me anything, you always say it doesn’t matter and you never talk about your family and I feel like I don’t know you Louis!”

“God, those are just excuses, Zac. Just say it, you don’t love me anymore, maybe you never did. I was blind, I actually thought you could love me, but you can’t.”

“This has nothing to do with not loving you, Lou. I love you, but I don’t know if you love me. If you do, you never tell me. Actually, you never tell me anything, you never open up. I had to find out from Zayn about what happened today. Because Zayn thought that maybe your boyfriend would like to know if you’re hurt, even though you can’t get that in your thick, insecure skull.” They stare at each other breathing hard and suddenly Louis laughs sneeringly and bitter.

“Oh yeah, well, if you hate me that much I guess it’s better if we break it off. Oh, and I know about your thing with that bitch Kendall. Aiden saw you at Starbucks looking loved up and everything, maybe she makes you happier than I could.” Louis whispers and Nick is close enough to see the tears in his blue, blue eyes. Zac looks heartbroken, he deserves it. Nick wants to kill the guy.

“Lou, I’m sorry. Please, I didn’t-“

“No, Zac. Now I can’t do it anymore, I feel like I’m trapped in this thing and you keep expecting things from me I can’t give you and I’ve had enough of this. I’m done.” Louis says and a tear rolls down his cheek. Zac reaches out to wipe it away, but Louis flinches back.

“I’m sorry. You have to believe me, I really loved you. But it felt like you were never fully in it, like you were keeping yourself from me. As if you thought I would hurt you.”

“Well you did, didn’t you?” Louis says, his voice ice cold and then he turns around and walks away, leaving Zac on the big stage.

Nick throws him one last glance and then he quietly follows Louis. He walks to the lake again and sits down in the grass; Nick sits down next to him.

“Why do I keep doing this?” Louis asks quietly. “Why do I always have to fuck up all my relationships? It didn’t work out with Dave or Aiden or Matty and now I’ve even fucked up with Zac. What’s wrong with me, Nick?” He has tears in his eyes again.

“Nothing’s wrong with you, Lou. It’s them; if they won’t fight for you they’re not worth it. You deserve so much better.” Nick whispers and carefully lets his hand fall into the grass so it covers Louis’. Louis smiles a bit and leans into him.

“You know what? You’re quite alright, Nicholas.”

“You’re quite alright, as well, Louis.”

+

From then on he and Louis spend time together again; they hang out by the lake with the other guys and they’re all surprised when it begins freezing mid-November. It’s unusual for England, but they’re all happy because the lake freezes and they actually get the permission to go ice skating, which is another thing Louis is good and Nick is crap at. While he twirls with Niall and some other students over the ice, Nick and Harry are part of the many students who are carefully putting one foot in front of the other on the ice, falling down every three seconds.

When it gets dark there are some garlands and lanterns which give them some light and make the ice shine. It’s beautiful.

After some time they sit down next to the lake, Zayn, Louis and Harry lighting up cigarettes. Harry swears he only does it once in a while, because he knows what kind of damage it does to your lungs, sending a disapproving look to Zayn and Louis. Zayn rolls his eyes and Louis laughs a bit.

“Y’all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.”

+

Louis gets strangely busy as they get to the end of November, not only with his exams, because they all study together, but there’s something else capturing his attention. Harry tells him it’s some art project, which is weird, because Louis only took art because he needed the hours to get through his A-levels, but he lets it go, because apparently it’s just another one of the big mysteries which seem to be part of who Louis is.

Nick is done with half of his exams and he feels like he actually did alright and he’s happy that he can spend some more time with his radio show.

One afternoon he sits on the tribunes with Louis again, joking around and enjoying the little bit of freedom they have. He and Louis are closer than ever and he feels like he’s catching more and more glimpses of who Louis actually is and he’s fascinated by everything he learns about the boy who easily swept him off his feet.

They’re sharing the earbuds of Nick’s iPod, listening to _Let it be_ by The Beatles and Nick catches himself imagining the lyrics of the songs being written into the sky like they do with airplanes sometimes, because he wants this to be captured; this song, this moment and this beautiful, beautiful boy. Captured and seen by god, the sky and the clouds.

Because he needs proof that this is real and not just his imagination playing tricks on him. That he’s actually this happy.

As Paul McCartney sings about a cloudy night and a light that shines on him, Louis takes his hand, lays his head on Nick’s shoulder and quietly sings along. Nick thinks he might burst with happiness.

+

Trouble comes on the fourth of December and it actually has a name: Chris Moyles. He’s apparently taken a short break from uni and decided to visit his old school with his old head writer and something they call “Director of Comedy”, David Vitty, and Nick soon figures out they’re both douche bags.

They walk into the school as if they were kings and strangely everyone treats them like that, as well, and Nick feels slightly uncomfortable having taken over Chris’ old position. But the guy plays nice with him and Nick decides to do the same, he really doesn’t need any beef with the former school’s favorite.

Harry and his boys are in a bad mood from the day Chris arrives and Louis seems to have disappeared, since he is nowhere to be found.

Chris and David plan to stay until Sunday, because apparently they can’t miss too many classes. It’s Saturday and Nick sits on a desk in the studio talking with Matt about the Monday show, when the two guys come in with lots of loud noise. Nick can see Matt making himself a bit smaller and remembers what Louis said about Chris liking to pick on Matt, so he straightens himself up, ready to defend his friend.

But neither of them seems to even notice Matt, Chris walks right onto Nick and sits down next to him.

“So, I heard you’re Tommos new plaything.” He says and throws Dave a dirty grin who grins back. Nick tries his best to stay calm and not hit this guy, because he’s clearly a jerk.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Nick says and stares straight through them. David grins and puts his hand on Nick’s shoulder.

“Hey, no need to be embarrassed. Y’know, me and Tomlinson had a thing last year and I know better than anyone that that ass is worth going down the gay way for a while, man. Sad thing he has to be such a clingy, needy slut about it huh? Have you fucked him yet?” He asks with such casualty that Nick just has to quickly stand up. Matt puts a hand on his arm to hold him back, but Nick shakes it off.

“Shut your fucking mouth or I promise I will make you.” He says in the most threatening voice he manages and stares into David’s eyes.  
“Ohh are you in love with him? Newsflash, you don’t love whores like Tomlinson, he doesn’t even want to be loved. He can’t deal with it, because he’s a freaking fuck-up, that’s all he’ll ever be.”

Nick can see that a small crowd has gathered around them and he can see Harry’s sad eyes and Zayn’s and Liam’s angry glares and clenched fists.  
“You’re both such dicks, you know? You think you’re some kind of kings around here, while in reality you’re just two lonely, stupid idiots who gain popularity by picking on those who are weaker than you. You’re disgusting!”

Chris jumps forward and his fist connects with Nicks jaw, but Nick doesn’t feel the pain, he just hits back and suddenly Liam and Zayn are by his side, but Chris and Dave are at least as strong as the three of them.

The crowd shouts and some people try to interfere, but they’re quickly pulled back. Nick has never been a good fighter, but right now he’s so full of rage he doesn’t even care. He just tries to hurt the other two as much as he can for what they said, for what they did.

“You know what, Grimshaw?! I enjoyed destroying your little whore; it was so much fun to ruin his reputation, to make him into what everyone including himself thought he was. DO YOU HEAR THAT TOMLINSON? YOU’RE NOTHING BUT A WORTHLESS SLUT!” Nick jumps Chris and starts hitting him harder, his fists raining down onto the guy, until Liam drags him away. Chris quickly stands up and pushes Nick.

Everything happens so fast Nick has no idea what really happened until Harry tells him later. Apparently he stumbled backwards against Matt who lost his balance and fell over, his head hitting the table. That’s when everything goes silent. Everyone just stares as Matt lies on the ground, lots of blood flowing out of a wound on his head.

Then the panic starts and Nick loses consciousness.

+

 

“You’re an idiot.”

Nick slowly opens his eyes and looks into a very bright light. So he didn’t die. That’s the bad news. He rolls his head to the other side, because the light is annoying the shit out of him and it’s far more pleasing to look at Louis Tomlinsons face right now. Louis sits on a small desk with a computer on it. That’s when Nick realizes he is not as he expected in a hospital, but in a doctor’s office on a treatment table.

Louis has a big grin plastered on his face.  
“But still, thanks for protecting my honor and stuff, totally unnecessary, because I’m fabulous, but still, thanks.”

Nick slowly sits up and rubs his eyes. He still feels a bit dizzy, but his head is getting clearer and he starts to remember what actually happened.

“How’s Matt?” he quickly asks. Louis pulls a face.

“He’s in the hospital; actually I think he’s in surgery right now, needs stitches and stuff. That table wasn’t really made for him to bang his head on it, but he’s not going to die or anything; he’ll probably look prettier than you, Li, Zayn, Moyles and Vitty together when they’re done, at least his face isn’t black and blue.”

Nick groans and has to keep himself from rubbing his face, because that would probably hurt like hell. This day sucks.  
Louis sits down next to him and takes his hand.

“I don’t know anything about heartlines and stuff, but I think that there must be some lines on your hands which say that you’re brave and loyal and a pretty fucking amazing human being. Really Nick, thank you. I know I can be a dick sometimes, but I really appreciate you standing up for me. I just thought you should know that.”

That’s unusual for Louis, because it’s so _not_ sassy, sweet, _I-don’t have feelings_ Louis Tomlinson.

“So we kicked Moyles out for good now?” Nick asks a bit weakly, because he still feels like he just ran a marathon which is something he never wants to do. Ever.

“Yeah, they’ll leave tomorrow morning and I don’t think they’re gonna come back anytime soon. Mrs. Reign made it pretty clear that she blames this on him and that he’s not welcome here anymore.” With those words he stands up and throws something at Nick who actually manages to catch it (yeah he’s crazy proud of himself) and looks at it incredulously when he realizes that it is a condom.

“Be safe next time!” Louis says and winks at him.

+

Everything kind of calms down after that, the Christmas preparations start which means that Niall is busy decorating just about everything with his crazy horde of event management enthusiasts (Niall is kind of like their god), so everyone has to participate in the annual secret santa, the competition for the best snowman (Harry and Niall have a big argument over the question if it’s appropriate to stick a banana instead of a carrot into the snowman’s face – “It’s a traditional snowman Harry, TRADITIONAL. We don’t want  your freaking variations.” “You are disrupting my creativity!”), the gingerbread house factory, various charity events and the Christmas karaoke and other parties. It’s a bit stressing, because their exams are coming up as well and Nick feels slightly sick when he thinks about his French exam because seriously he has no clue how he’s going to pass.

It’s Wednesday the 10th when Nick wakes up, because Harry gets up in the middle of the night and leaves the room, he turns around and tries to fall asleep again, but his nervousness gets the better of him and he gets up with a sigh and follows Harry. Luckily he can still see him walk around the corner when he leaves the room and so he follows him until they get to the kitchen. Even though it feels strange to him he decides to keep himself hidden a bit longer to find out what Harry’s doing at this time in the kitchen before he’ll show his face.

Harry walks into the kitchen and starts to talk to someone quietly.  
“I know, believe me I do, but please try to understand why I’m asking you to overthink this. Every time you go there, every single time, you come back torn into pieces and every time we try our best to put you back together and it kind of works, but you still lose little parts and the more times you go there, the more parts of you get lost and I can’t handle it anymore.”

“You don’t understand.” The other person says, Louis, Nick realizes. “They’re my _family_ , I can’t just go and bail on my family. They are everything to me, Hazza, and you know that. I know they’re not perfect, but who is? I love them and I will go see them over Christmas break, as I do every year. I’m sorry, but no.”

Nick slowly backs away, because this is none of his business and he gets that.

+

At the third advent Sunday they all have to go to church and, it being the official school advent celebration, the music courses are singing some Christmas songs and the rest of the time they are listening to some priest talking about some super religious stuff Nick doesn’t care about. It’s way more interesting to watch Harry and Niall play rock, paper, scissors, shoot,  Louis and Zayn sleeping with Louis head resting on Zayn’s shoulder and Zayn’s head on Louis’  and Liam trying desperately to listen to the preacher.

When it’s finally over, they all stumble kind of dazed out of the church and he realizes that probably most students were asleep. Everything Nick remembers is how Louis’ voice sounded in _Do they know it’s Christmastime at all_ by _Band Aid_.

“I missed your voice this week, Nicholas.” Oh, how Nick regrets telling the school his full name on one particular brave morning, because the little monster won’t stop calling him Nicholas now and _nobody_ does that.

“I’m sorry darling, I know I’m the only reason you get up in the mornings, but this cold nearly killed my voice. Gonna be on again by tomorrow.” Louis sticks out his tongue, hair still a bit messed up from sleeping on Zayn’s shoulder, it shouldn’t be as attractive as it is.

Then he smiles a bit. “You sounded really good up there, you know?” Louis blushes a bit and smiles back.

“Thanks Nick, but the others were way better, I sort of ruined it.” He says and takes a step closer to him. Nick carefully takes Louis’ small hands in his and looks him in the eyes.

“Don’t talk nonsense, you were brilliant. You know you mean a lot to me, right?” Louis looks up at him through long lashes, and he looks so fragile and breakable right now. Just as Louis starts to say something, Zayn walks towards them and puts his head on Louis shoulder, while hugging him from behind.

“Loved your voice, Lou. It was like the sun shone out of your ass.”

“Wow that started so well and then it took a twist and landed on my bum.” Louis answers exasperatedly and pets Zayn’s hair, something he only lets Niall and Louis do.

“Like everything does.” Niall shouts, which leads to Louis flipping him off casually.

“Listen, I got a call from my mum saying you could stay at mine over Christmas break. You know, she loves you and it would probably calm everyone’s nerves.” Zayn says quietly to Louis who is staring stubbornly at the entrance of the church.

“Can all of you please, like, calm down?! It’s my fucking family we’re talking about and you guys make them into monsters.”

“That’s because they treat you like shit. No, I won’t listen to you anymore. You’re coming with me over Christmas break, no discussion. You might as well call your mum and tell her.” And with that Zayn walks over to the bus which will bring them back to school in about an hour.

“What’s wrong? Why can’t you visit your family over Christmas break?” Nick feels bad for asking that, because it’s clearly not something Louis wants to talk about, but he has to. He has to know what’s going on and if he can help.

“It’s complicated. My family and I, we have some difficulties. There are some topics we always fight about and it kind of fucks me up every year and the boys have to take care of me afterwards. I’m just a horrendous burden sometimes, I guess.” Before Nick can say something else, Louis turns around and walks towards the bus as well.

+

On Wednesday the headmaster storms into the studio at 8 am during Nicks rant about knitted socks and asks him to come to his office. He tries to remember if he did anything bad in the last few days, but he can’t recall anything and Mr. White is quite a scary man, he’s got no hair and is in fact white with piercing blue eyes and his coffee is probably as black as his soul. He doesn’t expect him to say “I’m sorry Nicholas, you’re grandmother has cancer, a car is already waiting for you” and so he stumbles out of the room and down the stairs, gets into the car and closes his eyes.

 _Not Granny_ , he thinks and rests his head against the window.

+

“How are you, sweetheart?” says his Granny as he walks into the hospital room where she lies on a bed looking totally happy, calm and relaxed. Nick sits down in the chair next to her. He just talked to his parents, only to hear them saying that they were trying chemo, but that it probably wouldn’t work.

“I’m fine, how are you?”  
“Well, I’ve got cancer, but I’m fine. How’s your fancy school going? Any cute boys?” Nick really wants to talk and think about anything but his school and the cute boys, but in this case he and his granny are pretty much the same: brilliant in the avoidance of things they don’t want to think about.

“It’s good, exhausting, but good. And there actually is a boy.” His grannys eyes get wider and she leans forward.  
“So what’s his name? What is he like? When am I going to meet him?” Nick laughs and takes her hand. It feels like it always does: warm and soft and it reminds him of long hours in front of the fireplace telling ridiculous stories to each other and reading each other’s hand lines.

“His name’s Louis and he is really beautiful. He’s also very kind, but witty as well, sarcastic and funny and everything I ever wanted in a boy. But he’s also so sad sometimes and he never really believes in himself or opens up. He’s got a whole bunch of issues and I just wish I could fix them all.” He says and thinks of the moment he first met Louis, when he was all closed up, not letting Nick through his walls of self-protection.

“He sounds wonderful. You always liked a challenge and it sounds like this one is. You will probably never be able to fix all of his problems, but you can try and help him fix some and for everything you fix, you will get another piece of his heart.” He looks at his dying granny and figures she must know, then he lies his head next to her legs on the bed and she pets his hair.

+

The next days are filled with exams and stress and the only two things he really does are learning with Harry and writing his exam on Friday.

On Saturday, while he’s learning for his history exam, Louis storms into the room. Harry is buying Christmas trees with Niall for the school and Nick actually thought Louis would join them, but apparently not.

“I need your help.” Louis says and drags him out of the room to his own room, falls onto his bed and pulls out his phone.       

“I’m going to call my mum to tell her about Christmas break and I need you as moral support.” Louis says and starts dialing before Nick can even answer. He lays back onto the pillows.

When his mum picks up Louis looks like he’s about to throw up.

“Hi mum!...Yes, I’m fine!...No, I haven’t done anything stupid, this is about Christmas break…Well, I’ve decided to stay at Zayn’s this year…Yes, I know and I’m sorry…No, that’s not the point…Mum, you know it’s not like that…Fine, be that way!...I’m not…Okay, do that…I’m hanging up now…I won’t apologize mum…yeah, you too…bye” Louis hangs up, throws his phone on his desk and stares at the wall. Then he starts crying.

Nick takes him into his arms and has to watch helplessly as the boy shudders with sobs.  
“They’re still blaming me for it; it’s all my fault, after all. Stupid kid couldn’t even watch out for his little sister for five minutes. Failure, failure, failure!” He cries. Nick has no idea what he’s supposed to do, so he just holds him tight and tries to support him as much as he can.

+

The next week flies by quickly, he buys the rest of his Christmas presents, writes his last exam and plays about one hundred Christmas songs on the radio. Mrs. Reign and Mr. Strader are being tricked to stand  underneath a mistletoe by Harry and Niall, who film the two kissing after they realize that those boys won’t let them go if they don’t. The shipping reaches new extremes after that.

Louis won’t talk to Nick (or anyone else) about the phone call and pretends as if nothing had happened and Nick goes along with it, because it’s nearly Christmas and they can still fix their problems after the break. They will go home at 11 am at the 24th of December, so it’s only normal that in the evening of the 23th Harry’s boys gather in their room, with three bottles of vodka and their Christmas presents, to celebrate.

“I love you guys.” Niall groans at 11.59 pm and takes another sip from the bottle, giving it to Louis who does the same and then it’s the 24th and they start giving each other their presents, because they can’t spend the 25th together.

“But you’re only allowed to open them on the 25th” Harry declares and Louis rolls his eyes and shoves him to the ground from where they were sitting on Harry’s bed.

“Spoil sport” Nick murmurs but puts the gifts into his, already packed, bag.

At 2 am they’re all drunk out of their minds. Even Liam, who usually doesn’t drink much, has been talking about penguins and their crazy dating methods for about an hour. Niall and Zayn have fallen asleep on each other and sometimes Niall hiccups or Zayn whispers something about whales, but that’s it.

Harry lies on his bed, eyes closed, but he won’t stop giggling and telling stupid knock knock jokes. Louis and Nick lie together on his bed, their eyes half closed. Louis is grinning lazily and he waves the bottle of vodka slowly back and forth.

“You look so lovely, Nicholas. So, _so_ lovely”, Louis whispers. “You know, you’re like one of the best things that ever happened to me, right? You’re like super-duper lovely and I always manage to fuck up the lovely ones. I always make the lovely ones fall in love with me.” Nick looks at him and doesn’t really understand what he means, because Louis just _is_ like that. A complicated, intelligent, beautiful, little beast. Nick takes another sip from the bottle and then Niall shouts: “Let’s play truth or dare” and it’s on.

The thing is that when you play Truth or Dare in the middle of the night when everyone’s so drunk they forget a dare right after they formed it, it all comes down to some kind of orgy. So, after Niall and Zayn made out and Harry pretended to give Liam a blowjob (which was hilarious, _Liam’s face_ ) it was Louis’ turn.

“Okay Lou-Boo I’m doing this for everyone’s benefit: make out with Grimmy. And I want a real making out session, make it hot.” Harry says and smiles dirty, which is a look Nick never wants to see on Harry’s face again.

“Fine Harold, you big baby.” Louis says and crawls into Nicks lap, he slowly leans closer until their lips touch and that’s the moment when Nick gets into action. It’s obviously not their first kiss, but Louis’ lips are addictive, so soft and hot and he just melts against Nick. Nick grabs Louis’ hips and kisses him deeper, while Louis throws his arms around Nick’s neck and pulls him even closer, Nick never wants to let go.

Louis tastes like cigarettes and vodka and Nick hears Niall wolf whistle in the background as Louis falls back on the bed and Nick covers his body with his own. Louis is so small and he looks so fucking beautiful, all messed up.

He kind of forgets the game, forgets the boys and just keeps kissing Louis until their lips are bruised and they’re both out of breath. He falls down next to Louis and they stare at each other for a few minutes until they fall asleep.   

+

The next time Nick wakes up it’s because someone is talking, not very loudly, but loud enough for him to wake up, he’s got a very light sleep.

He takes a glance at the clock and sees that it’s 3:30 am and god, he’s glad he doesn’t have to do the radio tomorrow morning. He can sleep on the car ride. He looks around the room, he still feels drunk and dizzy and he can already feel a massive headache forming. The voice is still speaking though, so he slowly sits up a bit. Across from him Harry is still snoring, Liam and Zayn are sleeping as well. Only Niall looks around the room with half open eyes and a confused expression on his face, probably how Nick looks as well.

It’s Louis’ voice, Nick notices, he’s standing in the middle of the room and apparently having a mental breakdown, which Nick finds hilarious until he starts realizing what Louis is actually saying.

“Why do I always have to fuck everything up? This one thing I had to remember and I forgot, how could I forget? Oh my god.” It sounds suspiciously close to the things Louis said after calling his mother, Nick thinks and that’s when Louis notices that Nick and Niall are awake.

“Guys, I- I have to go somewhere, okay? Just stay here and make sure nobody notices I’m gone, yeah? Thanks, I owe you.” And he storms out of the room. If it hadn’t been 3:30 am and Nick hadn’t still been drunk and tired, maybe he’d noticed that there were already tears in Louis’ eyes, that he was still drunk and probably tired as well and completely upset. If those hadn’t been the circumstances maybe he would have managed to stop Louis, to take his hand and pull him back to bed, tell him that it’s okay, don’t worry. Everything’s alright.

If only.

 

+

 

 _Faster_ , Louis thinks. Or I won’t make it.

 

+

Nick wakes up the next morning in an empty room. All the boys are gone, Nick’s got a headache the size of the sun and he’s about to throw up, so he does.

When he’s finished and took a paracetamol he leaves the room and goes looking for the boys, he vaguely remembers the incident with Louis in the middle of the night and walks into the cafeteria. It’s silent.

Everyone is sitting there staring at him and he doesn’t know what to do, the boys table is empty. That’s when Mrs. Reign comes up to him, takes his arm and guides him out of the room.

“What’s going on?” Nick asks a bit scared, because this _is_ pretty scary.  
“Nick, something happened and I need you to stay calm about it. Louis was in an accident. He didn’t make it.”

Nick’s world falls apart.

+

The funny thing about all this is (no there is nothing funny in this world, not anymore.) that back then, when they were sitting by the lake and Nick had read Louis’ hand lines for the first time, he told him Louis had a strong Heartline and that that meant he’d have a long, healthy life. Well, Nick was wrong.

Because now he’s here sitting by the lake, crying, because the love of his life – as sappy as it sounds – is dead. At first he didn’t want to believe it, such a big, strong force of life doesn’t just die. The sun doesn’t just die. But then Mrs. Reign told him the details, about Louis driving drunk and crashing and not surviving and he connects the dots, remembers Louis leaving. It’s his fault.

“No it’s not.” Zayn says suddenly. Nick didn’t notice saying the last thing out loud or Zayn and Harry arriving. “It’s not anybody’s fault.” Then he lights a cigarette and murmurs “To you, Lou. Probably gonna miss that up there, huh?!” He laughs bitterly, Harry sighs.

“I already miss him so much.” He whispers, closes his eyes and a tear rolls down his cheek. Its three days after Louis’ death, none of them have left the school for Christmas break. The first two days Harry cried through and the others didn’t do much better either. It just really fucking hurts, Nick doesn’t know how to live, how to breathe without Louis anymore. Louis brought so much color to his life and now it’s all just black and white again.

“He loved this lake so much. Said it reminded him of freedom or something. You know, you changed him, Nick. Before he was so empty and sad sometimes and then you came and everything was different. Oh god, I miss him so much.” Harry whispers and Nick just wishes he’d shut up, because of course he’s fucking sad too, he’s hurting and he misses him but he doesn’t want to talk about it, he wants to keep it all inside of him, because this is another thing between him and Louis, only meant for the two of them, for nobody else to know. Just like all those days by the lake and on the tribunes. There’s so many things he still wanted to discover about Louis Tomlinson, so many little things he wanted to learn and now he will never get the chance to.

+

The funeral is going to be on the 31st of December, the last day of the year 2014 and Nick nearly starts crying again when he realizes that Louis is never going to be able to live in 2015, that he’ll never go to uni, never get married or have children, all those things he wanted so much and he won’t get them. And Nick will never be able to tell him how much he loves him.

It’s the 28th and Nick takes his phone to call his mother for the first time after he told her he wouldn’t be home for Christmas. She takes the call after the first ring.

“Nick, are you alright? Me and your dad have been very worried about you.”  
“Mum?” Nick whispers, tears already in his eyes again. “Mum, something happened.”

His mother can probably hear how upset he is, because Nick almost never cries and he rarely gets sentimental with his mum.  
“What’s wrong, Nicky?” And his mum never sounds that worried or calls him _Nicky_.

“Someone died, Mum. No not someone. The boy I loved, Louis, he was in a car accident on Christmas day and now he’s…Mum he’s dead. And I loved him so much. I can’t…I can’t deal with this. He meant so much to me and I loved him so much, I don’t even know how to live without him anymore. He was my everything.” Now he’s sobbing.

“Nick, sweetheart, I am so sorry. Darling, should we come visit you?” his mum asks in a soft voice, all sad and everything.         

“Maybe you can come to the memorial service? It’s on the fourth of January; I’ll be fine until then.” Nick whispers and wipes away his tears; he hasn’t cried as much as he has in the last few days in years.

+

He speaks to Niall alone for the first time on the 30th. They are watching Louis’ family arrive together in a big black car and this is the first time he’s with Niall and the boy’s not laughing or at least smiling. It’s all gone mad; Louis took so many pieces of everyone with him when he died.

“It’s our fault, isn’t it?” Nick asks and stares at the car. It’s doors are opening and a woman with dark hair and a pretty face gets out and Jay Tomlinson looks exactly how he imagined she’d look.

“No it isn’t, because we both know that Louis would never blame us for this, I wish he would, but he wouldn’t.” Niall says as three girls get out of the car, a teenager and the little twins: Fizzy, Daisy and Phoebe. A man gets out of the car as well, carrying a baby while Jay takes out another one. Nick looks at Niall and sees there’s another tear rolling down his face. That’s when someone comes to stand beside them: Greg James.

“I know why he drove that car, y’know?” he says and plays with his zipper. Nick stares at him while Niall sits down on the windowsill.

“And how would you know that?” Niall asks and wipes his nose; he sounds like he’s got a really bad cold.  
“I met him, had a nightmare and couldn’t fall asleep and he nearly ran me over. Said he needed to go to a cemetery and that he’d forgotten something and I asked him what it was and-“

That’s when Niall makes a choking sound and his eyes go wide. “Oh my god, I know who that was about!” he whispers. “Louis he had…uhm, he had a twin brother when he was still, like, in his mother’s womb. But the other one didn’t survive and Lou always thought that was his fault, stupid idiot, and once he told me that every year on the 23rd he’d go to the cemetery and visit him and Lottie, but this year our holidays didn’t start on the 22rd as usual, but on the 24th and apparently he forgot about that. Louis, you damn idiot.”

Nick stares at him and asks himself how many secrets and mysteries there really are about Louis Tomlinson and how he’ll never have the chance to ask Louis about them.

“Why on the 23rd and who’s Lottie?” Greg asks confused and Niall looks even sadder than before.

“His sister, she died when she was twelve, asthma attack. Louis was alone with her and he didn’t realize soon enough, another thing he blamed himself for.”            

Nick feels like he didn’t know anything about the boy he loved.

+

The funeral is for family members only. The only one of them who gets the permission to go is Harry, because Louis’ Mum knows him and she knows that they were best friends.

Nick tries hard not to hate the woman, but she’s the one who keeps him from seeing Louis one last time. When he comes back, Harrys face is all blotchy and red from crying so much.

“He looked beautiful.” He says. “Even dead he looked still so fucking beautiful. Please try not to be mad at Jay, Nick. This is all pretty hard on her and sure, there are lots of things she could’ve done better, but she still loved him. He was still her baby boy and now he’s dead.” Harry sniffs and throws his arms around Nick.

+

The memorial service is held on the football field, because that was one of Louis’ favorite places after all. The whole school has come, some of Louis’ old friends from Doncaster and even Nicks grandmother and his parents have come. Nick also gets to know some members of the boys’ families, but the whole day is kind of a haze to him. Everything seems blurry and Nick feels sick the whole time.

There is a big picture of Louis in the middle of the field and around it are millions of flowers. The event management club did everything to make this the most beautiful ceremony anyone had ever seen and Nick can basically feel how much everyone loved this boy. There’s also a lectern next to the picture and the flowers.

The boys and their music class have already performed _Be Still_ by _The Fray_ , Lou’s favorite band and _Not about Angels_ by _Birdy_. Everyone is already in tears by the time the speeches start.

“Umm…hi! That’s actually the first thing I said to Louis, when we first met. He was twelve, I was eleven and he spilled his tea all over my trousers. He said oops and laughed. That was the day we became best friends. Louis never cared that I was younger than him and all his other friends thought he was way too cool to hang out with me. He always said ‘You’re my Haz and I don’t need anyone else. Me and you against the rest of the world.’ And then we got to know Niall, Liam and Zayn and that kind of friendship only happens once in a lifetime. We were meant to be, the five of us. Louis was our center, our sun, the glue that held us together and now we have to try by ourselves, so we can stick together. But no matter what, you’ll always be our missing part and we’ll never forget you and we’ll never not miss you. I love you so much, Louis. He was such an amazing, brave, selfless person, but he was so insecure sometimes, even though he was so beautiful and he had such a beautiful voice. I’m sorry for everyone in this world who didn’t get to hear Louis Tomlinson’s voice.” The tears stream down Harry’s cheeks like waterfalls and he stumbles down from the platform and falls into Liam’s arms.

Zayn is the next one to speak. “Don’t be afraid, not all of us are going to hold a speech, it’s just me and Nick left. What can I say, Harry already said so much. Louis was brilliant; he was smart and beautiful and he could sing. He was kind, loving and gentle but sharp and sarcastic as well. He deserved so much and I wish he could have gotten everything he wished for, I wish he could’ve gone to uni and become a popstar and have a big house, a husband and kids. Because Louis deserved the world and he had so much shit going on in his life, I just- I loved him, still love him so much. He had such a great impact on everyone he met, he was like the fucking sun and now he’s flown to a new, a better world.” Zayn gives him a quick hug when he leaves the platform, everyone on the tribunes in tears and clapping. The song _All I Want_ starts playing as Nick takes the microphone and takes a deep breath.

“Hello. For everyone who doesn’t know: My name is Nick Grimshaw, I’m one of the school’s radio DJs and I fell hopelessly in love with Louis Tomlinson at the beginning of the year. I know it sounds stupid and sappy and like all the things Louis and I never were. He was a challenge, there were so many facets of him, so many sides I never got to explore and I just wish I had more time. I never got to tell him how much I really loved him. There were so many things I wanted to do with him and I’ll never get the chance to, now, but the first thing that crossed my mind when I found out, right after _iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou_ and _hecan’tbedeadhecan’tbedeadhecan’tbedead_ was that Louis Tomlinson would never get to experience 2015 and that I would never get to spend a whole year with the boy I loved. If he was here he’d probably hit me for being so cheesy, but I can’t do this, Lou. Not without you and right now I just really need to tell you that you were the most important thing in the world to me and I love you and I miss you.  
I will never understand why you had to go, even though that’s what everyone says at funerals and stuff. I’m so sorry that we never got to be what I wanted us to be, we would’ve probably been a horrible couple; always bickering and fighting, but I would’ve loved you anyway. I would’ve read your handlines, even though I was wrong when I said you were going to live a long and healthy life. I wish I’d been right. Louis, I love you and _our love was made for movie screens_.”

+

Louis’ mum finds him later and hugs him.

“You loved my baby the way he deserved to be loved,” she whispers in his ear. “Thank you for that.”

+

A few weeks later he visits the cemetery where Louis is buried. It’s strange to know that there is a boy buried beneath him, the boy his thoughts have been circling around for half a year. It’s been too short, he still can’t get used to the emptiness Louis left behind. Nick knows he has to get on with his life, but it’s easier said than done.

Louis isn’t really buried at the cemetery though, he wanted a burial at sea, but his parents put some of his ashes at the cemetery and got him a grave stone as well. It’s a black stone with silver letters on it and Nick remembers what Louis said about the Lhotse, about the mountain who was always only second best, and he can’t stop himself from thinking that silver is also second best to gold, that maybe Louis wanted it to be like this.

Nick kind of wants to cry again, but he doesn’t think he has any tears left. On the grave stone is written:

 _Louis William Tomlinson_  
24\. December 1997 – 24. December 2014  
One Heart with a million voices.  
Loved more than he could have ever believed.

Nick kneels down and carefully touches the stone, it’s cold and hard and he is not going to lie, he doesn’t feel Louis, or anything like that, but he still knows that there is a part of him lying here and that’s enough. He’s just glad that Louis can be in the sea at last, that he can be wild and free even in death.

“I still love you so much. I’m always gonna love you Lou, never forget that.” He whispers and there’s one single tear rolling down his cheek. He smiles a bit and puts the lily he brought next to the roses and pansies other people brought to the grave, in front of the stone. When he gets up again there’s suddenly a hand on his shoulder. He turns around and Harry’s standing in front of him.

“Hi.” He says with a sad smile. They look at each other for a while, then Harry takes his necklace off and puts it next to the gravestone. He always wore that necklace; got it from his mum and now he wants Louis to have it.

“Miss you, Lou.” He says and presses his lips shortly against the gravestone and cries a bit. Nick puts his arm around Harry and they leave the cemetery together. At the gate, Nick turns around and looks into the sky, it’s already dark and he can see some of the stars. There is one that shines especially bright tonight and Nick looks at it and whispers: “Sleep well, Lou.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr: http://fragilou.tumblr.com/


End file.
